Your questions answered by Suzie Hayman of Greatvine.com
Greatvine.com offers individual advice, by phone, direct from the country’s best parenting experts.

Suzie Hayman is a Relate-trained counselor; Triple P accredited parenting educator and ‘agony aunt’ with more than 20 years of experience. The author of 26 parenting and relationship books and a counselor on the BBC series ‘Stepfamilies’, Suzie offers parenting and relationship advice that works. For individual advice you can trust, book a private phone call with Suzie at www.greatvine.com/suzie_hayman

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How will my relationship change once I’ve had my baby?

Oh, I wish I had a penny for all the people who say “A baby isn’t going to change our lives…” and then find out how wrong they are! Having a baby will change your life, your family and your relationship profoundly - but that doesn't mean it has to be for the worst. It does mean, however, that if you explore how it might do so, as you are wisely doing, you’ll be forewarned and forearmed. You can then be in control and able to manage the change for the best.

Having a baby may mean your couple relationship feels less important, for a time. The danger is that if you put it on the backburner, it may not be there once you go back to retrieve it once your child has grown a bit. Having a baby is inviting a third person to come into your home and your relationship - there’s no two ways about it. Love can stretch infinitely so that no-one needs miss out or get less love; but your time and your attention will be split and so unless you take care it can feel to some people as if they are being left out. Mum may carry the baby but Dad helped put it there so it’s really important to see this as ‘baby makes three’, not ‘baby makes two’. Resist the tendency for some relatives and even some professionals, to only talk to, consult, support or congratulate Mum. Dads often get left out and that can be the beginning of a slippery slope, for men to feel that gaining a child means losing a partner.

Since babies are so helpless and their demands can be so immediate and insistent we may get into the habit of always giving instant attention to them and not noticing when a partner needs us as well. The belief may be that they will wait while the baby will not. Do this once too often and the partner may feel they no longer have a place, and may drift away. It’s important to go on leaning on and loving your partner as much as you once did, and to make time to be with them as a couple as well as co-parents.

There’s another reason it’s so important to foster your own private, intimate relationship as a couple. Some parents find themselves drifting towards only seeing themselves as Mum and Dad, rather than John and Jane, once a baby enters their relationship. This can lead to your conducting your entire relationship through them and losing sight of each other as partners and lovers. Once they become older and no longer need you, you may find yourselves unable to connect without the bridge they provide. A little bit of selfishness in staking out time for yourselves as individuals and together as a couple makes your relationship better, and your family stronger.

Having a baby may help you understand your own parents better, and may allow you to finally feel ‘grown up’. Having a baby sometimes leads people to ‘put aside childish things’ or demand their partners do so, and this can actually be a loss. You should still be silly and romantic and foolish sometimes. Indeed, you’ll be a better parent as well as a happier lover and partner if you can remember what it was like to be - and still occasionally behave as - your younger selves.

I’m so tired and it feels like the spark’s gone out of our relationship. What can I do?

Having a baby is exhausting! It’s physically demanding, whether you’re giving birth or holding the hand of the person who is doing so. It’s then emotionally as well as bodily draining to be in sole charge of a helpless babe, whose screams for comfort or food or reassurance we have to interpret and satisfy. The spark can go for several reasons. One is simply tiredness, on both your parts. Two is the fact that you feel so utterly focused on your baby and on being a good parent that you have little energy or attention to spare for anything else. The third is that being so responsible can make you feel scared and incompetent, and neither emotion is very conducive to sexual arousal.

You can turn it all around but it takes some time and effort. It can help to recognise it took 9 months plus whatever time it is since you gave birth to put you in this situation so allow yourself some time to get out of it. Firstly - address your actual tiredness. New parents need sleep. You both need to work out a plan that gives each of you as much as you require - 6 or 7 or 8 hours a night. But that may not have to be in one stretch - try cat napping in the day. Also, take turns when one and then the other takes sole command. Even if you’re breast feeding, it can help to know your partner is in charge every other night to take care when baby wakes just for a cuddle. And don’t hesitate to use ear plugs or eye masks to stay down and under when it’s your turn. You should also ask grandparents, and even other relatives who offer, to look after a child for a day or a night to allow you to get some rest.

Once you’re less tired, make some effort to be with each other as a couple rather than just a pair of child-carers. It’s easy to lose the spark when you never have any time to be alone together. Think about the least time you made mad, passionate love and recreate some of the elements - a night out, a bath together or sharing a massage. Remind yourself that you both deserve this, focus on what you’d like and give that to your partner - they’ll get the message. Should you feel you are in need of further help, why not try contacting one of the sex and relationships experts on Greatvine.com

How can you stay friends with your ex for the sake of the kids?

Children desperately need both other parents to be in her lives. They need to be loved by both Mum and Dad, to spend time with both Mum and Dad and to know both Mum and Dad will be their for them whenever they need them. You may be angry with your ex and want them out of your life, or need to have them know just how disappointed you feel. But none of this should spill over into your child’s life.

There are two really important things you need to do to stay friends with your ex. The two of you need to go on being co-parents, doing your best together for the sake of your children, while acknowledging that you are no longer partners.

The first is to draw a line under your own relationship. Some ex partners go on being tied together, by anger and pain as much as they once were by love and care. This connection can be as powerful as the one they once had, but as destructive as the initial love was constructive. You need to end and move on and sometimes the only way to do that is to finish the argument - to know you’ve said all you need to say and know it has been heard, and to hear what your ex needs to say too. An important part of this moving on may also lie in being able to recognise what once was good. Think about what you enjoyed and liked about your ex and your relationship, and then consider what went wrong, in both your eyes. Talk it over - it helps to have a mediator (find one through National Family Mediation at http://www.nfm.org.uk) or counsellor (from Relate perhaps www.relate.org.uk) involved so you can be honest without it descending into a row. Alternatively visit www.greatvine.com and speak in confidence live and direct with a counsellor, mediator, and family therapist or divorce coach today.

Once you can say “It was good and I’ll remember that, but now it’s over and I can accept that…” you’re ready to take the second step. This is to recognise that while your partnership is over and won’t return, you role as co-parents is here to stay, and for your children’s sake - and your own - you need to do this side by side rather than head to head. It often helps to have a mediator guide you through the conversation to set up agreements that will aid you in sharing parenting even when you don’t share a life or a home together.

The way to stay friends is to let go of any anger and pain over your own relationship and focus on what you need to go on doing together - to bring your children up feeling loved and supported by both of you.

I think my partner’s cheating on me – what should I do?

Confrontation and accusations never get you anywhere. Whatever the other person is doing, when something like this is thrown in their face, they will often deny it. All you get then is arguments and tears. But that doesn't mean you should say nothing - living or colluding with a lie or with suspicions will destroy a family and never helps.

What you need to do is challenge the situation and make a statement of your own feelings. Saying to someone “You’re cheating” tends to push them to defend their behaviour. But stating your feelings is something they cannot - or should not - deny. However, it may also allow you to consider why you think this and whether it’s your partner who might be behaving badly, or you who might be feeling insecure.

So, use the four-part statement that is so very useful in any family or relationship setting. This is “When …I feel…because…What I would like is (or, What should we do about this?) Using each part of the statement allows and requires you to think through what you feel and why. In this case, it might help you to clarify what has led you to feeling the way you do.

So, you might try;

When you go out with friends every other night/come home late from work so often/answer the phone away from my hearing….
I feel left out and alone…
Because we don’t seem to be communicating anymore, and I think you are seeing someone else…
What I would like is for us to talk this over

Whether it’s your partner’s behaviour is at fault or your conviction that you don’t deserve to be loved so perhaps he must be cheating you, either needs to be explored and understood. Sometimes, we can do this by asking for and demanding an honest and clear discussion. Often you’ll need the help of a professional - visit www.greatvine.com and speak in confidence live and direct with a counsellor, mediator, family therapist or divorce coach today. For your own sake and the sake of your family, don’t let anything - your own pride or your partner’s protestations - stand in your way.



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